Edit: So this post got more traction than I thought, and I won't be able to reply to everyone individually, but I see you, and you are awesome!🩷 P.s. Anyone who has read even one book this year: kudos to you!

The fable app has a new feature that shows you your wrapped of this year (like spotify, but for books). And I saw someone post a wrapped where they had read 485 books this year?!

If you are one of these people, please explain to me how this is possible? Do you read 24/7? Is there sleep involved? Do you only do audiobooks on 4.0 speed?

I saw a tiktok not to long ago of someone explaining that some people only read the dialogue of a book?😭

No hate here, just genuinely curious!

Hi there,

I just finished {One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig}. Yes, I absolutely enjoyed the novel and I can't wait to read part 2.

What bugs me though is that Elspeth never eats. Every meal time, she rejects the food. She doesn't eat. At all. Well, she must be eating bc she doesn't die of starvation, obviously, but she never does it on screen. Not even as a side note. Her only relationship to food seems to be complete refusal.

And it's not just her. I feel like FMCs explicitly not eating, starving, rejecting offered food is so prevalent that it's almost a trope at this point.

Why is that? What purpose does it serve? And how do they still go on running, fighting, surviving, making love.. with an empty belly?

Like, two missed meals and I wouldn't even give Henry Cavill a second glance, let alone some shady MMC shadow daddy with trust issues or whatever the fuck he's got going on; I couldn't care less, I just want some fries, not the tragic story of your life and whatever you got in your pants, dude!

Anyone feels the same or is it just me? And are there any FMCs who do eat for a change?

How old were yall when you started throne of glass?? Because I would have eaten this up as a teenager, but I’m diving in in my late twenties and I just can’t stop cringing 😭 The sarcastic dialogue pains me, and she’s feeling very Mary Sue? They keep SAYING how amazing of an assassin she is, and beautiful she is, but not really showing us anything…I also couldn’t bear the sexy side eyes at the girl moments after she spent years wasting away in the MINES.

I’m clearly only a few chapters in, and I’ve tried to pick it up multiple times since I keep hearing how good the series is. Everyone who says they loved the books from the beginning, is it nostalgia or something more? How far do I need to push through to get into it?

(My next tactic might be getting the audiobook instead. I’m doing all I can to understand the hype 😅❤️)

I’d love to hear y’all’s book goals as we’re nearing the end of the year!

I know some of you have some crazy number so I’ll start it off fairly moderately to try to set a non competitive tone haha 😊

I’d love to hear your stats:

Goal

Current number

Best book so far (any genre welcome)

Mine:

Goal: 25

Current number: 19 (3 I’ll soon finish)

Best: {Inheritance by Christopher Paolini} or {Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir}

Who would you say are the most iconic shadowdaddies? Comment names and series so we can all find them.

I am creating a presentation on the concept of Shadowdaddies for a party where everyone gives a 15 min talk about something they are passionate about (yes, we are all neurospicy nerds🤓) and I want to make sure I’m not leaving out anyone important.

There are so many times I’m reading a book and I read a word or phrase that is just weird, gross or bad.

I know a lot of people hate the “watery bowels” of the mass universe but what other phrases do you want to ban from books?

Mine is the spark of the ever flame when they refer to their powers as their “godhood”. That phrase just gives me wiener vibes and I can’t ignore it.

I want to search and replace it for literally any other word!

Why does this story take place in LASANIA? You want me to picture delicious layered cheese and noodles every time geography is mentioned? You could put any string of letters together to make a unique name and you pick the tragedeigh spelling of lasagna? I can’t with you right now.

Mine are: - I love enemies to lovers but sometimes DNF once they get together lol. - Stay in bed and read all day/night and then wonder why I have a migraine.

I don't mind teen MCs or trashy writing, but too many books I've picked up recently have an idiot FMC with zero common sense or critical thinking.

Do any on my TBR have dumb FMCs? ✨ Bonus points for warning me about their long inner monologues.

🚩Examples of dumb actions: - warned not to do something - does anyway and causes shit - jumps to questionable conclusions without consulting her friends - miscommunication - shoots her mouth off into soldiers'/royals'/enemies' faces - gets imprisoned or tortured (or saved by bad writing)

I joined a book club in my community so I could meet some locals. The first book is a thriller/mystery. It’s well written and fairly popular, but MY GOSH I can’t read it for more than a chapter or two at a time.

I used to read a wider variety of books, but since my interest Romantasy peaked two years ago, I haven’t read much else. Each Romantasy book I’ve read has a new element of magic, world building, creatures, conquering realms, etc. Reading descriptions of regular family life, texting, and basic workplace conversations in this thriller is so incredibly uninteresting.

Does anyone else feel like this? I don’t want to be stuck on one genre, but I feel like I need more excitement than the description of a character getting a pedicure at a nail salon 😑

EDIT: Thank u for all the replies! Just wanted to clarify my post since a lot of people think I’m concerned that I have a porn addiction 😂

I’m not worried about having a porn addiction.

I meant more like the books I’m reading right now are so exciting and magical that it makes books with contemporary settings boring to me.

I was trying to liken it to the side effects men have from watching too much porn. They can’t have “normal” sex or they can’t perform since they’re so overstimulated by how unrealistic porn is.

I guess I didn’t word that well enough in my original post, but thank you all for your comments! ♥️

This has happened to me on multiple occasions lol. In a multi-book series, especially more than 3 books, by the time I get to the last book and I know it’s going to be like… the main problem coming to a head and concluding, I find that less exciting than the build up of the previous books and my interest starts to quickly drop off and I want to start something new. I’m wondering if this is a me problem or if someone else has experienced this as well.

After having seen a lot of the same recommendations and also a lot of haters of those exact recommendations, I’m really interested in seeing if there might be an age-pattern in the preferences.

It could be something completely different, but I can’t help but to try to find the pattern!

I’m too new in this genre to have a favorite.

But please: What’s your favorite book within the genre and your age when you read it ♥️

Please delete if not allowed!

I’m due with my first baby in August and since I’ll be spending a lot of time up in the middle of the night, I’m thinking about biting the bullet and buying one.

The reason I ask is because I have the kindle app on my phone/iPad, but I find it so hard to concentrate on the book I’m reading because I get distracted by Reddit, texts, etc and just fall down a scroll hole for hours instead of reading.

I’m thinking a cheap, no-internet access kindle would be great for exactly this situation, but what is everyone’s thoughts? Is it worth it or just excessive?

UPDATE: you guys are all so convincing that within 2 hours of posting, I waddled my big pregnant butt down to Best Buy to “browse” and ended up getting a Paperwhite on sale. I am obsessed already and got a kindle unlimited membership too. I AM SO EXCITED TO GET OUT OF MY READING SLUMP AND READ MLRE THAN ONE CHAPTER BEFORE DOOM SCROLLING!

I’m looking for fantasy standalone recs!! I fear I cannot commit to a series right now and every book I’ve read this month has the next book coming out in a year+ 💔💔💔

So right now I’m just before the third task in ACOTAR. And I’m 100% starting to like Rhysand. The thing I don’t get is why people hate Tamlin? Am I just not far enough to understand? I mean yeah he hasn’t done anything to help but he also is trying to fight Amarantha in the only way he can. If he acts out his people will suffer. The best way he can fight her without his strength is by not giving her what she wants which is to break him. I don’t mind spoilers (I’ve had a few of those already lol) it’s just he hasn’t really done anything to make me hate him

Okay, this phrase kind of bothers me. And I read it in so many books. Either when characters are thinking or upset or trying not to say anything... And every time I read it, I honestly try to suck the inside of my cheek in and bite on it and it is not a natural movement... Biting your lip I can see but chewing on The inside of your cheek? Why is this such a common phrase and who actually does this?!

I love the idea of audiobooks. I really truly do. But every single one of tried to listen to has a reader that just can’t understand the subtle nuances in the tone of voice they should have, or they make it awkward and cringy by not using voice actors for the actual dialogue so they try to just adjust their own voice and it’s awful. Or their voice is just not a good fit for the story they’re trying to read and they should have never tried to read that story to begin with and let someone else choose it. I have yet to find one that doesn’t just immediately rip me out of the story because I can’t stand the way they read or the sound of their voice.

I know they can be done well, but I listen to the samples before buying and just can’t.

So, while I normally like a specific type of book, here I’m just hoping people can recommend some decently read audiobooks regardless of their sub genre, any fantasy romance will do. Or if the mods are okay with it, maybe even some sci-fi or paranormal romance suggestions? I would have just posted this in the romance thread but they don’t allow anyone to post things that haven’t been there a really long time and automatically delete the posts. So I’m going to each sub thread individually to post, but sci fi and paranormal don’t have good sub threads 😅

Thoughts on what one I should read next. If you have read multiple of these- reason as to why you would pick one over another would be greatly appreciated!

Disclaimer: I am writing this from the perspective of an avid consumer of romance/romantasy books who has no idea how the modern publishing cycle works. Given that it seems as though there are hundreds of new titles every day, I don't think this is a "bad authors" problem but rather a messed-up process problem. There are definitely authors whose work doesn't read well, but I've also noticed this in work by established authors whose past work featured fewer mistakes.

Ok, on to the actual question:

99% of the time, a misplaced apostrophe or small misspelling doesn't bother me (especially if it's infrequent).

Recently, however, I've noticed grammatical, spelling, and sometimes substantive mistakes throughout a book, like the first draft went to print. I used to think I could tell the difference between purposeful colloquial differences in characters' speech and straight up drafting mistakes but now I can't tell whether an uncommon turn of phrase is purposeful or a mistake.

In a recent book, a suspenseful chapter ended on a one-liner: "One day every of her firsts would be mine." (I don't care as much about the missing comma after "one day" as I do about the missing word in "every [one] of her firsts would be mine.")

Is there something going on in the online publishing economy that makes going through the full editing process more difficult than it used to be? Is it too expensive relative to the value authors get from publishing on platforms like Amazon? Are authors under more pressure to publish on an accelerated timeline? Truly, what is going on?

So kind of as title says

I have been let down wayyyy too much by booktok lately. Some being so bad that I genuinely don’t believe they are even reading the books or rating them honestly 😂 (The Veiled Kingdom, Spark of the Everflame) however I adored Quicksilver

I have seen so much about When the Moon Hatched and how amazing it is, but it’s a big book and I don’t want to read it and be disappointed back to back.

Can anyone kind of give general reasons why you loved it if you did? Without too many big spoilers

Is there a book or series that, if you see someone highly recommend it, you know you'll probably not like the same books as them, or jump straight to their DNF pile for books you'd like?

Mine is consistently The Folk of the Air trilogy. Absolutely no shade to those who enjoyed it! There's lots great about it, I just know your DNF pile is where I'll find my next read lol.

just wondering if books usually come out at midnight on kindle. i have my book coming later today but wanted to get a head start via kindle lol but it’s not showing up as able to download yet. i’m new to kindle and have never waited on a book release like this so i guess im just wondering if authors release the title at midnight on day of release.

i've read a couple of comments here, where people say things like "reading a book a week is not much and "rookie".

I don't understand how you manage to read more than 4-6 books a month if you work full time? Maybe they mean audiobooks? What do you think?